Health inspectors find mold, cockroaches, undated Spam

Reno's oldest "soup kitchen," serving the region's most vulnerable citizens, was among the four food service facilities to receive a failing grade during routine health inspections in late April.

The violations included mold, a cockroach and vegetables stored in plastic Home Depot buckets.

In all, 19 restaurants and food service facilities were written up during routine inspections by Northern Nevada Public Health from April 16-30, with four shut down altogether and another five receiving a failing grade.

Northern Nevada Public Health, formerly known as the Washoe County Health Department, issues four types of inspection ratings:

● Pass: Fewer than three critical violations during inspection.

● Conditional pass: Three to five critical violations that can be corrected immediately. The facility may remain open and a reinspection will occur to "verify that all violations have stayed corrected," according to NNPH'S explanation of the process.

● Fail: A restaurant has more than six critical violations that are able to be corrected during the inspection. The facility may remain open before a reinspection to ensure all violations have stayed corrected.

● Close: Restaurant has critical violations that can't be remedied during the inspection.

Below is a sampling of critical and non-critical violations found in the second half of April 2024.

Reno-Sparks restaurants closed due to critical health violations

Bab Café

303 Third St., Reno

● Active managerial control: No certified food protection manager on site. NNPH was told that the operator was in his car and that if we arrived to call and he would be here quickly. Once he arrived roughly five minutes later, the CFPM stated that that he was down the street getting his staff coffee. Later in the inspection, the CFPM also stated that he had just run to his car to grab something when inspector arrived.

● Active managerial control: During office hearing, operator provided an active managerial control policy for cooling and stated all staff will be trained and cooling logs will be utilized. At inspection, items that were on cooling log were unable to be found and items that received cooling violation were not noted on cooling logs.

Mehfil Indian Bistro

868 Tahoe Blvd., Incline Village

● Food and potential environmental contamination: Wet cloth covering/ touching ready-to-eat cooked chicken with no lid present in the walk-in cooler.

● Equipment: No ice in ice machine or any ice wands in order to properly cool food. Operator stated ice machine does not work properly. Facility has two prep sinks; however, one is being used as hand sink and the other one is not used as it must be turned on from underneath.

● Food labeling: Yogurt in large containers unlabeled or date marked. Operator stated that yogurt is transferred